In accordance with World Sailing’s Olympic Equipment Policy, which states that any interested and qualified manufacturer must have the opportunity to become a builder of Olympic equipment ILCA have now appointed six new builders worldwide joining PSA here and PSJ in Japan.
To comply with the WS policy the International Laser Class boats will be sold under the ILCA brand in order to allow builders to sell boats in any part of the world without trademark restrictions.
The new builders are;
Devoti Sailing s.r.o. (Poland)
Element 6 Evolution Co Ltd (Thailand)
Nautivela srl (Italy)
Ovington Boats Ltd (United Kingdom)
Qindao Zou Inter Marine Co., Ltd (China)
Rio tecna srl (Argentina)
All ILCA approved builders’ boats are manufactured from moulds made from ILCA master tooling and are built in strict compliance with the standards and specifications of the class Build Manual.
In Australia we have been fortunate to have the most experienced builder in PSA here so perhaps little change in supply arrangements. Some other Laser Regions had not been well served under the previous builder arrangements so are very pleased to have production closer to home – an advantage we have enjoyed for a long time.
Thanks to a VLA initiative and finance we now have a new mobile app which each Australian Laser district can use and which will provide notifications, information, documents, results etc. relevant to the district and regattas.
Many sailors will have seen how useful this information and notifications are for regattas when a similar app was used at the Victorian 2020 events earlier in the year.
The app is free on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store – just search “Australian Lasers” and look for the distinctive app logo or click on one of the links below.
You will get notifications of any new information on one Australian Laser district and one Regatta which will be the last district and last regatta which you accessed. You can also see National Laser results, messages and documents by selecting the ALCA icon on the home screen.
If we can’t have an Australian Championship this year we can at least reflect on the great events of the past.
Greg Pratt has dusted off photos which he took at the 2010 Nationals at Adelaide Sailing Club. You can see these photos HERE. In this series Tom Slingsby won 10 of the 11 races which is about as dominant a win as you can get at this level.
You can see the results of the Standards HERE and thanks to the work of Rob Lowndes and others the results of the Nationals going back to last century are HERE. You may not recall how you went in the past but the internet never forgets.
2010 Nationals Tom Slingsby on his way to a very big win – Photo Greg Pratt
Australian Sailing has announced HERE that it has ceased running Australian Youth Championships. It will continue to run State Youth Championships once COVID-19 orders allow.
In their announcement AS say that clubs are at the centre of a sustainable future for youth sailing and that the development of a club based coaching program is a priority for them. They also say that resourcing will be dual focused;
Helping to develop sailors so that they stay engaged at their club and remain lifelong members of our sailing community
Provide opportunities for aspiring athletes to progress from club to national level
Following AS’s change ALCA will be placing additional emphasis on Youth at our Australian Championship events. The Laser Australian Championships already include Youth categories as cube events. These championships will become the selection event for the Laser sailors in the World Sailing run Youth Sailing World Championships and are and will remain the ranking events for applicants for all ILCA World Championships.
ALCA will rename the Australian Championships as Australian Laser Open and Youth Championships. Going forward these championships will always be run as separate events from the Masters while the Australian Laser Masters will be run as a separate annual event.
The Australian Open and Youth Championship 6 year rotation around the states will be unchanged though as previously advised the WA event at Fremantle SC due to COVID-19 will be postponed for one year.
The separate Australian Masters event will be held on a three year rotation around the east coast mainland states.
It is expected that with the greater focus on youth in the National Open and Youth Championships and with the increase in emphasis and numbers in the 4.7 at these events the Laser Nationals will continue to grow and prosper.
The separate National Masters events have always been popular and very well attended. ALCA considers that running more of these will increase Master’s participation and interest.
Following AS’s change ALCA will be placing additional emphasis on Youth at our Australian Championship events. The Laser Australian Championships already include Youth categories as cube events. These championships will become the selection event for the Laser sailors in the World Sailing run Youth Sailing World Championships and are and will remain the ranking events for applicants for all ILCA World Championships.
ALCA will rename the Australian Championships as Australian Laser Open and Youth Championships. Going forward these championships will always be run as separate events from the Masters while the Australian Laser Masters will be run as a separate annual event.
The Australian Open and Youth Championship 6 year rotation around the states will be unchanged though as previously advised the WA event at Fremantle SC due to COVID-19 will be postponed for one year.
The separate Australian Masters event will be held on a three year rotation around the east coast mainland states.
It is expected that with the greater focus on youth in the National Open and Youth Championships and with the increase in emphasis and numbers in the 4.7 at these events the Laser Nationals will continue to grow and prosper.
The separate National Masters events have always been popular and very well attended. ALCA considers that running more of these will increase Master’s participation and interest.
The rotation sequence for these events will be as follows:
Due to uncertainty about COVID-19 health orders and border restrictions, ALCA in consultation with event organisers WA Laser Association and Fremantle Sailing Club (FSC), has decided to postpone the 2021 Australian Laser Championships to 1-8 January 2022 at FSC.
The Australian Open Laser Championship rotation order is unchanged so the event after Fremantle will be the NSW & ACT hosted championship at Georges River Sailing Club 1-8 January 2023.
As you may be aware Australian Sailing has cancelled their Australian Youth Championships 2021 which were to be held at SoP YC WA. They had earlier conveyed their decision not to run National Youth Championships after 2021.
As there will be no 2021 Australian Championship event the ALCA AGM will be held online instead. The AGM will be held by Zoom on 15 December 2020. Details and arrangements will be conveyed closer to the meeting date.
